January 30, 2010

Let me have men about me that are fat;
Sleek-headed men and such as sleep o' nights:
Yond Cassius has a lean and hungry look;
He thinks too much: such men are dangerous.

And according to a new study, people consider fat men in politics more "reliable, honest and even more inspiring" than thin men.

[Dr. Elizabeth Miller," a political scientist at the University of Missouri and a co-author] split 120 volunteers into four groups. Each group was presented with descriptions and photos of four separate phony candidates who had the same gender and body type: obese male, skinny male, obese female, skinny female. Within each group, each phony candidate's political views differed.

The study subjects then rated the candidates based on a series of criteria, including honesty and ability to perform. The obese males were viewed 6% more positively than skinny males, while skinny women were viewed 5% more positively than their full-figured counterparts. Overall, obese females were viewed 10% less favorably than obese males.

Yes, the preference was for non-skinny men. Women still need to be thin. "Let me have men about me that are fat." Men. What we trust in men and what we trust in women are 2 different things, then and now.

Fat is feminizing. Marc Antony looked dangerous to Caesar, and he was. Leanness emphasizes a man's difference from women. He looks more masculine, and that makes him more appealing to (most) women. But we don't want our political leaders to be too masculine, which we associate with individual ambition and ruthlessness. Women who are more thin seem more like men, and in our subconscious, this makes us think they are more able to do the work our culture associates with men.

Speculation from observation: The fatter men are over loading on Carbs due to the stress of continual interaction among followers that wears them down. They make great politicians in a democratic election system. The Thin men are better sole rulers that are acting out a perfect performance in public, but not taking in the feed back offered by their subjects. Hence no stress, but seething anger at the audience that does not applaud the perfect performance he offers them of His vision for their future...it's always all about him. The fatter men do better as second in command under for another leader, kind of like a politician seeing his role as second in command to carry out the desires of the majority of the people.

I'm practicing our new set list for the women's show choir I'm in, and it strikes me that "Heal the World" by Michael Jackson shoulda been O's campaign theme song.

When we did the first run-through last Monday night, after hearing the track, there was a moment of silence which I broke by saying:

"Well, that's not very realistic."

(Referring of course to the ideas, not the singability.)

Pardon the overcapping, I copied and pasted from a lyrics website:

There's A Place InYour HeartAnd I Know That It Is LoveAnd This Place CouldBe MuchBrighter Than TomorrowAnd If You Really TryYou'll Find There's No NeedTo CryIn This Place You'll FeelThere's No Hurt Or Sorrow

There Are WaysTo Get ThereIf You Care EnoughFor The LivingMake A Little SpaceMake A Better Place...

Heal The WorldMake It A Better PlaceFor You And For MeAnd The Entire Human RaceThere Are People DyingIf You Care EnoughFor The LivingMake A Better PlaceFor You And For Me

If You Want To Know WhyThere's A Love ThatCannot LieLove Is StrongIt Only Cares ForJoyful GivingIf We TryWe Shall SeeIn This BlissWe Cannot FeelFear Or DreadWe Stop Existing AndStart Living

Then It Feels That AlwaysLove's Enough ForUs GrowingSo Make A Better WorldMake A Better World...

Heal The WorldMake It A Better PlaceFor You And For MeAnd The Entire Human RaceThere Are People DyingIf You Care EnoughFor The LivingMake A Better PlaceFor You And For Me

And The Dream We WereConceived InWill Reveal A Joyful FaceAnd The World WeOnce Believed InWill Shine Again In GraceThen Why Do We KeepStrangling LifeWound This EarthCrucify Its SoulThough It's Plain To SeeThis World Is HeavenlyBe God's Glow

We Could Fly So HighLet Our Spirits Never DieIn My HeartI Feel You Are AllMy BrothersCreate A World WithNo FearTogether We'll CryHappy TearsSee The Nations TurnTheir SwordsInto Plowshares

We Could Really Get ThereIf You Cared EnoughFor The LivingMake A Little SpaceTo Make A Better Place...

Heal The WorldMake It A Better PlaceFor You And For MeAnd The Entire Human RaceThere Are People DyingIf You Care EnoughFor The LivingMake A Better PlaceFor You And For Me

Heal The WorldMake It A Better PlaceFor You And For MeAnd The Entire Human RaceThere Are People DyingIf You Care EnoughFor The LivingMake A Better PlaceFor You And For Me

Heal The WorldMake It A Better PlaceFor You And For MeAnd The Entire Human RaceThere Are People DyingIf You Care EnoughFor The LivingMake A Better PlaceFor You And For Me

There Are People DyingIf You Care EnoughFor The LivingMake A Better PlaceFor You And For Me

There Are People DyingIf You Care EnoughFor The LivingMake A Better PlaceFor You And For Me

You And For MeYou And For MeYou And For MeYou And For MeYou And For MeYou And For MeYou And For MeYou And For MeYou And For MeYou And For MeYou And For Me

Caesar is not the best judge of character. He gets wiped out by many senators, including his friend Brutus.

So as usual in Shakespeare there is an irony in what people say.

In Henry IV -- Falstaff is hefty, but not to be trusted.

John of Gaunt is the hero of the play. Perhaps he's not to be trusted either, but he and his son wipe out all other comers.

I'm not buying any of this. I think the woman who did the study had a fat husband or something and was skewing the data to shoehorn him into popularity.

This can't be true. Fatties aren't always bad, but beanpoles aren't always bad either. Something is behind all this data, and I suspect mischief. It certainly isn't true that Shakespeare himself is saying fat people are the likeable ones.

A lean and hungry look is as transient as youth--or batchelorhood. Look for Althouse and Meade to start packing on a few pounds....Michelle Obama is in late middle age. Look for her preaching against obesity to come back and bite her in the ass.

No one likes fat women but plenty of men like chubby.It comes down to definition. When fat was an anomalyAnd chubby girls were roundwhere it mattered, no one cared.Today, fat abounds,and it had dragged chubbyup by a few pounds.

Thank you for that enlightenment, Ritmo. I suppose Shakespeare is just boring to a superior thinker like you. I have always noticed that the insights of Shakespeare into the human condition are so masterful and witty that many people are just plain jealous of him.

I wouldn't deny that Shakespeare had privileged insights into human nature, TG. However, I also wouldn't deny that, as a playwright, he would have occasionally engaged common human prejudices or sentiments in order to further the viability of a plotline at times in his work. Especially in the limited space of 4 little lines.

When Shakespeare was trying to make a larger point regarding human nature or the "truth" inherent in it, I daresay he devoted much more than 4 isolated lines to it. As an obvious fan, wouldn't you be inclined to agree?

Ritmo...Yes, Shakespeare had many characters reacting to the stress in their lives being presented on stage for our entertainment. The perfect verbal expressions by those characters about the very real problems we all remember thinking about too. This gives us a great feeling that others in the audience understand and accept publicly what we once struggled with secretly. But in end the end, even the great Will Shakespeare does not offer us the answers to these dilemmas that he could so precisely talk about, anymore than you or I can do.